Liam Daish has been exposed to the extreme of the tactical spectrum during his football career.

Part of John Beck’s Cambridge United side who became infamous for their mastery of the dark arts – from sugary tea to sopping-wet balls – he took part in one of football’s strangest experiments as manager of Ebbsfleet United.

And while he said that Beck’s reputation is harsh, it is still hard to believe the MyFootballClub – who owned Ebbsfleet during Daish’s reign – actually happened.

In short, it was around 10 years since MyFootballClub bought Ebbsfleet United. The programme initially let those who paid a subscription fee – all 32,000 of them – to decide on how the club was run, from player signings to kit designs.

They eventually secured Ebbsfleet for £635,000 in 2008. And even though things started well – they won the FA Trophy within months of the takeover and finished 14th in the Conference – things quickly turned sour. But initially, with the club in debt and stagnating, Daish was happy to go along with it.

“The chairman had decided that he had taken the club as far as he could and they knew I was ambitious and I was willing to do something to keep the club going.

“I met up with the guys from MyFootballClub and I got on fine with them.

“It was all put to me and I just rolled with it.”

MyFootballClub probably would have been more successful these days, with social media far more prominent.

The reality was that even though the fans had an option to pick the team every week, they opted for Daish to do it every single time.

Whether it was the pressure of choosing a team that proved too much for some, or the genuine belief that these things shouldn’t be decided by someone half way across the world, the fans’ real influence was limited.

Indeed the only major say they had was selling promising youngster John Akinde to Bristol City for £140,000 – most of which was spent clearing debts of the club.

Interest waned – the membership dropped to 1,300 by 2012, the club was losing money by the day and the playing budget had been slashed. Eventually MyFootballClub members voted in April 2013 to hand over two thirds of the club to the Fleet Trust and the other third to a major shareholder of the club – KEH Sports Ltd.

They were relegated from the Conference Premier and Daish left, despite seeing them through a tough period.

“Look, fans are fans for a reason,” Daish said. “I think, in the end, it was quite badly managed. There was a real opportunity with the FA Trophy to get some exposure and run with that but we didn’t.”

As a young man he moved away from Portsmouth in search of first-team football and ended up in Cambridge, and admitted that the team put together there would “run through walls” for each other.

“I remember it very fondly,” he said when asked about his time at the club. “It seems a long, long time ago now, but I have got nothing but great memories.

“At Cambridge I played in a good team, along with good, honest players.

“I met up with a few of the lads at Dion’s [Dublin] wedding, actually, and we always just pick up where we left off and that’s always the way when we do see each other.

“Alongside with living up in Cambridge – it was my first time away from home – I just had a great time.”

And while Beck’s reputation precedes him in some ways, Daish was quick to point out the innovative techniques he brought to the Abbey Stadium.

“The thing about him was that he was a little bit before his time,” he said. “We were doing stuff that, back then, was 10, 15 years before its time.

“He educated us in nutrition and did all the analysis and motivational stuff. Whether you liked his style or not, he got the lads playing in a way that everyone knew his job.

“We would run through brick walls for each other. The squad that Chris Turner put together, we were either released from other pro clubs or on frees. We were as fit as anyone, we were running for the full 90 minutes. It’s testament to the players.”